Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands) claimed the inaugural women's European Championships road race, leading from the front to win in a sprint ahead of Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Poland) and Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy). The trio had been part of a group that jumped clear of the field inside the final kilometre as they climbed the Cadoudal hill in Plumelec.

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"It's definitely special to become the first European champion of the history," Van der Breggen declared after the race. "I wanted to come here for that reason although I already had a dream season but I'm very happy to add this title. We had a strong team. I'm delighted to finish it off and have the jersey. It's a beautiful jersey."

The Olympic champion for road racing in Rio, she also won the Flèche Wallonne this year, but the European championship was high on her agenda. She claimed the silver medal in the time trial before she tackled the road race with big ambitions.

"It worked out to stay on the front," said the female version of Peter Sagan, also born in 1990 and very efficient in uphill finishes.

She always had the race under control, also when a breakaway was formed just within 50km to go with Séverine Eraud (France), Olena Pavlukhina (Azerbaijan), Anna Stricker (Italy), Nicole Hanselman (Switzerland), Anisha Vekemans (Belgium), Emilia Fahlin (Sweden), Anna Plichta (Poland) and Lucinda Brand (The Netherlands).

Mariane Vos and Riejanne Markus made the race hard for Van der Breggen. Brand, Plichta and Pavlukhina forged on at the front until it was all together again with 15km to go. Before the final lap of 13km, Van der Breggen attacked and Alena Amialiusik (Belarus), Longo Borghini and Niewiadoma accompanied her. It was the winning move.

"Niewiadoma attacked really fast at the bottom of the final climb," Van der Breggen described. "She had already done a big effort but I knew I could recover well. I made my move instinctively. I chose to be on the front for sprinting to victory."

Longo Borghini settled for third place like at the Rio Olympics.

"I'm happy with my result," the Italian told Cyclingnews. "It's a great satisfaction to make a second international podium of this caliber this year. It happened to be exactly the race I expected. We pulled to close the gap once we didn't have anyone in the breakaway anymore. The hot favourite won today."

Plumelec is not the end of the road for Van der Breggen.

"We still have the world championship coming up," said the Dutch woman. "We have to go. The course might not suit me as much as here but we race a lot in Qatar and we have strong girls for this kind of racing in the desert. I'll be happy to contribute to the team work next month."

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